Apple Music leads in customer satisfaction survey

Apple Music

Apple Music hit another milestone after winning top honors in a J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey. According to the study, Apple Music beat out competitors including Pandora, Spotify, Google Play, Rhapsody and others. The 2016 Streaming Music Satisfaction Survey found that streaming music listeners were most satisfied when sharing playlists and following other users. J.D. Power describes "Social" as the key battleground for streaming music providers.

The survey also highlighted some differences in streaming music listeners and their levels of satisfaction. For example, those who subscribe to a paid music service have higher satisfaction than free streaming users. The gap amounts to 19 points. Customers who are more engaged as opposed to being passive listeners are also more satisfied in general with streaming music.

One of Apple's strengths with Apple Music is the emphasis it puts on exclusive content. J.D. Power found that these exclusives improve "customer advocacy" with 74 percent of listeners to exclusive content saying they "definitely will" recommend their service provider. Using additional devices for listening also improves customer satisfaction with streaming music services. Bluetooth speakers boosted satisfaction levels by 23 percent among listeners.

Apple Music has over 17 million subscribers after launching a year ago, compared to Pandora's 80 million listeners. Spotify boasts 40 million paying subscribers and 100 million total users. Still, Apple Music topped the survey with the highest overall satisfaction score out of 1,000 total points.

Apple Music: 834
Rhapsody: 826
Pandora: 825
Spotify: 824
Industry average: 822
TuneIn Radio: 820
Amazon Prime Music and Google Play Music: tied at 818